


New Development

by f_imaginings



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Dream Bubbles, Kankri's many repressed unresolved issues with comparisons, M/M, discussions about The Signless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-06
Updated: 2015-02-06
Packaged: 2018-03-10 17:19:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3298154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/f_imaginings/pseuds/f_imaginings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karkat attempts to persuade Kankri to reconsider his bias against the Signless.</p>
            </blockquote>





	New Development

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lactoria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lactoria/gifts).



He was incessant.

"It’s like, he understands. You know? Understands exactly what a shittastic time mutants on Alternia faced. He’s been there you know."

Focusing very hard on typing out his latest rant on quadro-normative politics, Kankri managed a tight lipped “Hmm.” in response.

"And I’m not like saying that as in ‘he was there, he saw it happen to some guy’ I mean it like as in he was  _actually there_  and he, you know, suffered.”

"I imagine that’s why they call him the ‘Sufferer’ then." Kankri felt as though his words were coming out a little too clipped. A little too curt. His typing took on a quality of intense focus and productivity, though for the afterlife of him he couldn’t recall the content of his past paragraph at all.

"Well, yeah, but he didn’t call himself that at all. He was just so cool and well spoken, and in control of himself. Composed. How he talked, I wouldn’t call it commanding, but he didn’t need to check I was paying attention, he just knew."

"How very nice for him." Kankri continued to type in vain now, barely stringing words together, but attempting to look commanding nonetheless. His blank eyes flickered over to see if Karkat noticed his ‘commanding presence’ but was dismayed to note that the young troll was not paying attention to him in the slightest, instead mooning over the most successful of Kankri’s dead alternates.

"He just achieved so much though. Like Alternia back then was brutal. How he must have lived would have been ridiculously hardcore."

Kankri’s responding “Hmm” seemed rather flat now. Completely nonplussed Karkat barrelled on.

"Because he preached peace, right? Non-violence. That trolls didn’t have to be this way. But you can tell, just looking at his arms even, that he knows how to handle himself in a fight."

"And why exactly, pray tell, were you looking at his arms Karkat?"

A mottled blush spread over Karkat’s cheeks and he shrugged - attempting nonchalance.

"Just taking it all in."

Abandoning his virtual rant altogether now, Kankri fixed Karkat with an unimpressed look.

"What?" Karkat scowled defensively.

"Does it ever occur to you the point wherein your admiration crosses over the line to infatuation for that troll might be perhaps  _slightly_  offensive, given that you are in fact currently quadranted to me.”

Karkat realised Kankri’s slip before he did, and raised one eyebrow at the dead troll’s choice of wording.

"Well, not technically. Pseudo-quadranted maybe. Spoken for at least or - stop giving me that look. You know what I mean." Kankri spluttered, colour flooding the tips of his ears as he muddled through his hasty retraction.

"You’re jealous." Karkat replied, a certain devious quality infecting his voice.

"I am no such thing." Kankri denied, puffed up with indignation.

"Have you ever even met the troll? One on one outside whatever weirdly tainted visions you had? Ever truly met him, detached from your whackjob, self judgemental, comparative pan bullshittery?"

"What’s that supposed to mean?" Kankri bristled at the implication.

"It means - dumbass - you can’t act like you hate him if you’ve never met him in person. If you don’t allow yourself to actively think and feel and respond and react to who he is - without being all tied up in your puzzlesponge comparing and overanalysing every single fucking facet of micro-interaction between you and him. We both know you do it. How can you expect to form an opinion of him genuinely without detaching yourself from all your preconceived notions and shitty biases that you hold against him?"

"What makes you think I hold bias against him?"

Karkat gave him a flat look. No words need said.

"Alright fine." Kankri conceded grumpily, crossing his arms. "So maybe I’m slightly biased. So what?"

"So," Karkat replied, very slowly, as though he were spelling it out to a wriggler. "You can’t expect to form a proper opinion of him when you’re holding all these negative thoughts against him that he hasn’t even earned."

"Well I can’t just go into discussion with him forgetting everything I know about him. Context informs content Karkat." Kankri recited imperiously.

"Bullshit. I’m talking about knowing who he is- not what he’s done. You’ve made your mind up about him before you even met him. You didn’t even do that to Vriska or Eridan. I’m calling bullshit. The only thing holding you back here -"

"I don’t want to hear it." Kankri brought his hands up over his ears, childish and stubborn.

”- Is your own toxic fucking habit of comparing yourself negatively to anything that even slightly resembles you-”

"I’m not listening!"

"-and projecting that negativity back on the person, totally denying you ever had reason to direct negativity onto yourself."

"La-la-la-la-"

"Admit it. Admit that you’ve got no good goddamn reason to hate him that’s not just you hating yourself. Admit it!"

Kankri closed his husktop screen with a smart click and made to stand up. “You know I think I’m rather done with this here.”

"Are you running away?" Karkat asked, amused.

"I’m reconvening." Kankri snapped back.

"But you won’t come back to this topic, will you?" Karkat questioned, and it was almost like he was goading Kankri. That may not have been Karkat’s intent at all, but Kankri’s shoulders bunched with tension, and he narrowed his eyes at Karkat, suddenly seeking to prove himself.

"I’ll think about it."

Karkat shrugged, and it was almost as though he didn’t believe his ghostly partner.

"Suit yourself."

Riled up and tetchy beyond compare, Kankri gathered his husktop, and papers, and stormed off into the study, closing the door behind him and locking it shut.

In the loungeblock Karkat watched him go, and stretched on the couch, his eyes lingering, contemplative, on the closed study door. It would be interesting to him, to see where this new development lead them.

The Signless expressed interest in Kankri - now if only Karkat could get him to come around.


End file.
